It was a celebration to hear the almost 300 girls kidnapped in Nigeria we all freed. I listened to some of the dads as they wait to see their girls again. For them it was 4 days. For me almost 9 years.

The email to my friend Dave that I described is below.

My Lady, this man, your husband, loves you!

Dave,

On Ephesians 5:21 and “submit”, you are right in that some translate this as “being submitted” (ABP) or “subjecting” (LSV/YLT). It is to “arrange under” being built on the two words “under” and “arrange”. But it isn’t those details you are after, but how I live it out.

Consider the context of the chapter. Can you see that it essentially starts with loving the Lord by submitting to His commands? Then we see loving our neighbor by our submission to them. But submission to others is not seen in obeying the laws of others but putting them as of more importance than you, such as see in Philippians 2:3 “but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” The chapter continues with the husband and wife relationship and the obvious submission there.

Clearly this submission does not override the submission to and ultimate authority of Christ. An obvious example is if a husband commands a wife to steal or murder, or someone else in the sense of verse 21, the answer should be a definitive “no”. A simple opposite example is if we should prepare the beef or the chicken for our meal? Your preference, especially if I already know about you, is chicken, so let’s have chicken. Both options are acceptable in the sight of the Lord, but in placing of you above me, we have chicken.

So how does it apply to me? I constantly embrace Thomas’s statement to Jesus: “My Lord and my God!” Where His commands are clear, it is His commands I obey. My understanding is not full or completely correct, and therefore my brothers engaging me is a blessing to me. In living out submission to others, I will just say I have a still slightly sore hand from doing that this weekend that was a bit more that the selection of chicken.

But the issue is not really my submission. If a mass murderer warns you of a banana peel that you are about to slip on, do you ignore him because of his deeds? If I am an unloving self-centered egomaniac, but rightly proclaim the Scripture, does what I proclaim become invalid due to my character?

Without doing a complete review of our emails, I think we agree that there are charlatans who do things like state that if you tithe to our institution the Lord will bless you back with even more. Some of these people are what is described as false teachers in that they know that what they proclaim is untrue and a means of gain. There are those who think they are doing right, which are described as teaching a false doctrine. Some of those can and will be corrected and repent. However, the bottom line is that the Scripture is clear that the tithe is food for the Levites, and that simply cannot be fulfilled today.

Your position that there is no prohibition may seem reasonable, but consider what you are leaving out, specifically that the home gatherings are primary. It is like taking an allopathic pill rather than eating right in the first place. It is like the lack of exorcise and eventually you atrophy.

An obvious way to see this is to go up to a young person who is a stranger and attached to a cellphone. How many have any idea of what it is like to have a face-to-face conversation? The Panic-Demic only amplifies this. We have this wonderful tool of a cellphone, but it has made people inept in doing that marvelous thing of conversing. The institutional church is just an older version of the cellphone.

Over the centuries we have turned to the institutional church to act as our mediator, rather than Christ alone as our mediator. We have turned to the institutional church as the care giver to those in need, rather than living out the model of the Good Samaritan, especially noting the conclusion: “You go, and do likewise.” (Luke 10:37). We turned to the church building as a place to gather to avoid the command to be hospitable, a concept seen repeatedly such as 1Timothy 3:2 in the discussion of an overseer. And an overseer does not gather in meetings with other institutional leadership, but on his own will visit people (James 1:27) since that verse uses the same word.

Remember it was in the heart of King David to build the temple, not a command of God. The modern church building is simply a little temple, whereas Jesus claims to be the true temple.

The reason I contend that this is not opinion but attempt to show evidence from Scripture where it clearly speaks, is that falling into the institutional mindset will make you weak in the areas of dealing with the stranger, such as the Good Samaritan example, or opening your own home as clearly commanded, or serving the “least of these” as we leave it to the institution rather than it coming from our own hands. Consider a few verses before your reference: Eph 4:28 “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.”

You are arguing from silence, which is a weak position. You seem to add a bit of an ad homeniem to give weight to your case, but I am not the reference. I contend the institutional church, like sugar laced processed food, weakens the body. It is marketed as a wonderful thing and give a good feeling, but in the end it is fraud.

Respectfully,